& Mirina Collections: Scam or Nah?

I know I know. I said the next post would be about fashion finds and what not but I need to get serious for a second.

As an avid journalism junkie I feel compelled to give you the facts about Mirina Collections and nothing more and nothing less. In college I was never one to back down from any injustice when it came to finding things to report to my campus newspaper and this is no different.

A few months ago I was randomly contacted via email by a Tiffany Rose from Mirina Collections eager to ask me to be an ambassador for their jewelry collection. They had noticed my small Instagram presence and wanted me to promote their brand. After completing some research I discovered all these beautiful women who got their necklaces and I said why not? Tiffany informed me that I could pick a necklace and get it free as long as I paid for shipping because these necklaces were handmade and they can get a bit heavy. After paying my $30 for a $120 necklace I was excited. I felt like I saved me some money and I would get a one of a kind necklace. I waited about four weeks and finally received my Erin necklace and it was a bit underwhelming after a while. The necklace itself seems to be cheaply made. No materials on it scream $120 necklace. That didn’t worry me though. I shrugged it off and promoted away promising anyone that used my unique promo code 20% Off. It felt cool to be a part of a network of positive women working for fashion’s sake.

Here is the initial email below:

It wasn’t until recently when I was contacted by a Tiffany Rose at Nora NYC to promote expensive sunglasses designed in the USA that I got skeptical. Again she wanted me to pay for the price of shipping, $30 and the sunglasses could be all mine within a few weeks. I don’t know about you but I sit on sunglasses a lot and couldn’t justify spending a lot on them so paying $30 for $70 sunglasses just wasn’t going to happen.

I did some digging on Nora NYC and discovered they are affiliated with Mirina Collections and there are a lot of disgruntled Mirina Collections Ambassadors who feel that these high end handmade necklaces are not high end at all. In fact these same necklaces can be found much cheaper at many other online retailers particularly these necklaces can be found on Amazon for a hundred dollars less.

Also a popular picture of them working hard in their office is actually a photo shopped picture from a totally different company.

Mirina promises 20% Off purchases made with your unique promo code and an in on their exclusive network of Mirina Girls. Today I decided to do a bit of investigating. I went to their site and put something in my cart and entered my promo code “Justdae” and it was apparent that it didn’t exist.

After chatting with another former Mirina Girl we discovered what happens is the promo code doesn’t work and so the customer contacts Mirina Collections directly and they’re given a different code. -_- Which is frustrating and almost like the Mirina Girl Ambassador Program is free advertising for Mirina Collections.

After shopping around and seeing the very same necklaces for so much cheaper, discovering my promo code didn’t exist, and contacting Mirina Collections several times to receive no explanation whatsoever, I chopped it up as me being duped. The good thing is that I wasn’t duped twice. If someone truly wants you to promote their product, they’ll be transparent with you and they won’t charge you ridiculous prices for cheap Claires quality jewelry.

I was hoping to get a response from someone at the Mirina Company but received none. It was also odd that there were no complaints on their official Facebook page which even the best companies have one or two complaints. This is because Mirina Collections deletes and or blocks people who unsatisfied. That’s not how business is done in the real world. I’ve done customer service for years and covering up flaws is not how it’s handled.

Have you been contacted by Mirina Collections? Do you think this is a scam?

*Note: Eos update: As you may know from the last post I recently purchased an Eos lip balm and my lip swelled, cracked and is still sore. I contacted them directly and they offered me…. more Eos lip balm. -_- I just palmed my face and considered myself over it.

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They are scammers. I’ve been working on something myself to out them. My necklace is was broken on arrival. Had snapped so not fixable. Living in the UK I spent more than 30 dollars to receive it. I became involved in a discussion about broken necklaces that had been received on their Facebook group and was blocked from the group. I’ve been chasing them about replacing or refunding but got nothing back. Thends I found none of the codes I had been given worked. My personal one does not work. The ambassador code does not work. They claim their necklaces are unique designs. But I found many of them from other sites at mere fractions of the cost. One was £6.99. The most expensive was £20. They claim and advertise as unique and handmade. This is illegal. Also many girls who received broken necklaces were told no refunds. Action can and should be taken. Once I have gathered all I need I will be putting it all forward. X

Yes people on Instagram are mad as they should be. I’ve been emailing them for an explanation and they ignore me. Some have even reported them to the Better Business Bureau for their ridiculous practices.

Well I think you’ve done a great job highlighting this. Hopefully more will come forward and proper action will be taken. Once I have got all the information I want to put forward and share, I will be posting an expose too. Its difficult for me being in the UK, as the same laws do not apply but I will still be putting a case forward to Trading and advertising standards. Even if its just so that there is a record of it so it doesn’t happen to other people. x

They contacted me through Instagram and asked me to be an ambassador. I was honestly excited to get on board with the idea until I saw that their store was mainly made up of photos I’d seen posted on Pinterest that did not come from their site. I just put that down to a coincidence and was about to order a pair of earrings until I realised they would only accept credit cards and not Paypal. That’s when I started googling them and found this blog post. I’m so grateful I saw this otherwise I would have purchased those earrings which I could easily find for $5 on eBay of the same or even higher quality. I really hope someone lodges a complaint against them with a fair trading commission.

I ordered a necklace (grace) and a pair of sunglasses. After I ordered them I saw a comment a girl had made in insta saying she never recurs her necklace. I didn’t think any of it at the time. Well I received my sunglasses but have yet to recieve my necklace . I’m really upset cuz I’ve Waite door a long time for it and my order says full filled which is a complete lie . Wtf!! I hope they get shit down . It’s so wrong to rip people off who work hard for their money.

I’ve definitely been scammed by them. I started off as an ambassador and then applied to be a social media rep. They claim they only require you to work one hour a day but I worked many hours a day while working a full time job and another side job and it consumed so much time. The pay was crappy and they expected you to make 20 sales a week before you made commission which was $5 per necklace. One day I confronted Brit about this because the necklaces are selling for $35-$70 or more for shipping and weight and I am making a small commission (this is before I found out it was a scam) Brit is so rude and basically told me that they would have made more money on the necklaces if they didn’t pay me because they so called have to pay a bunch of people to make it. Bish please. Shortly after I was working hard on contacting ladies when I got logged out of my account. I contacted my marketing manager and she never responded so I contacted Brit and that’s when she decided to inform me the company decided to cut people who weren’t making enough sales and I am welcome to apply again. I cussed her out and informed her I had 2 jobs and a masters degree, I don’t need that damn job. Now, months later I decided to look up scams again and found a lot of information. I wish I would have seen this before! Will definitely be writing a review on my own blog, forevertaryn.com

Thank you for posting this valuable information. It certainly pays to do your own research. I have been contacted twice by this company and felt reluctant each time. I am all for cross promotion however; I will not promote a company that is out to scam hard working people out of their money. Peace and blessings to you 🙂

Wow, I’m so glad I’ve found this post! I done exactly the same thing a few days ago. Initially I had the feeling something wasn’t quite right, but stupid me went along with it – checkout came out to $53. Been doing some research today and I’ve found the same necklaces on aliexpress for $5-8. Which would explain their 4 weeks “making time” grr.

I shall be doing a huge post on this, i can see why so many people can fall for this 😦

Haha they really are crazy. Im currently doing loads of research on them, emaied people at new york fashion week to confirm their slot there, as mirina have it advertised on their sight. Ive also found their supplier I believe, so getting in contact with them – should be interesting! x

I wish this had been posted one day sooner! I got contacted on my tumblr to be one of their affiliers, all I had to do was buy sunglasses and then promote them on my blog with a 10% off code. I looked around, not nearly as much as I should have and being the naive 17 year old I am I said yes. I have now waited since the 21 january, My glasses have still not arrived. I sent them e-mails asking where my order was and Why it haddent even been sent yet, at first I got a few replies, telling me to send the order number and they would get back to me. That was two weeks ago, haven’t heard anything from them. I guess thats how it goes when you don’t research, but It still sucks.

I’ve been once contacted by an Ashleigh from Miranda. I almost gave in but I didn’t have much at that moment.
Now I’ve been contacted by an Ashleigh from NoraNYC. The girl’s name and site design, policy were similar and it got me thinking.
I just google searched and found your post.
Thanks for sharing

Wow, I feel quite silly, I was too scammed by them to be an ambassador, they contacted me on Instagram and did not even offer me the only pay for shipping/weight deal I actually paid full price for a $78.00 necklace and I used my ambassador code which did not seem like an unique code to begin with… “mirninagirls” to give to family and friends and “ambassador” for me to use for myself. So my order came to about $71.00 for the Jillian $78.00 necklace. I also did a separate order for sunglasses in which I paid another $56.00 or so for a pair of the $49.00 Meshin glasses and another $10.00 pair of their sunnies. After 4 weeks or so I began to wonder where my order was so I emailed them and they got back to me promptly telling me how I had to consider 4 weeks of “business days” and not counting weekends into my shipping times. I did receive my necklace and to my surprise there were two necklaces in the package. The Jillian I got had 3 crystals missing in it and I felt like I could of bought it at Target. Thee was no way these were handmade.The second necklace was another design just as cheaply made, maybe they sent me an extra one to try to make up for bad craftmanship? Who knows. My sunglasses were taking a long time too so I emailed them and they told me one of the designs I ordered were not in stock so I was given the option to choose two other designs or get a refund. I chose two other designs and in a few days my second package arrived. My $50 pair of Meshin glasses are a great style but I highly doubt they are $50 sunglasses, I also question if the lenses are even 100%UV protection and yes inside the ear pieces it clearly states “made in china” I will not be promoting this company as an ambassador simply because their designs are not hand made as they state and their prices are ridiculous for such low quality jewelry. I will say I was satisfied with their customer service though, they responded promptly and did send me an extra necklace and pair of sunglasses. So for $130.00 I got two necklaces and 3 pairs of sunglasses. Still does not make up for the money I wasted because I’m sure this stuff won’t hold up after a few wearings. I learned my lesson.

Yes and I’m glad you found this out before you put more money into their company. I can’t believe they have the audacity to have another company. They’re constantly sending me emails asking me to be an ambassador and I think it’s hilarious and ridiculous.

So glad I read this, just got sent an email from them, though I’ve received a few dodgy emails lately from people trying to get me to pay money to get followers on instagram, so I did a little digging and I’ve found so many people who have complained about them. I’ll be marking that email as spam them!

im so glad i found this!! they just contacted me on instagram last night and i was so excited telling everyone and a friend of mine told me to do some research before agreeing. I was all upset with him thinking why cant he just be excited for me, but turns out he was right!! They just emailed me this morning to pick out my necklace so im not even going to look at them if this is what they are going to do to me in the end! Thank you so much for sharing this!

They left me a comment on instagram today asking to apply to be a brand ambassador! So glad I did my research before wasting time with them… I found it quite suspicious in the first place, because I have fewer than five hundred followers, and I’d expect companies to want brand ambassadors with a following of at least 1000+. I knew it was too good to be true! Thanks for your super detailed post ❤ It has saved me time and money and energy.

omg this is crazy i was just done emailing them what necklace i wanted to become part of their theme… I’m glad i did my FBI part. lol well i guess ill b ignoring they’re messages after all!!! it sucks because they make you think that they are trying to help you to expand you’re name also …. but no its actually based on ripping people off!!

Wow I wish I did my research. I applied for the ambassador program, I loved the look of the jewelry, I actually ordered 4 necklaces and 1 pair of sunglasses. One of the necklasses for free, just post, and the rest around 50% off. Well stupid me to spend that much money on a company I did not do my homework on. I never received any of the products, got lame excuse emails about how they now have new owners and they trying to reduce the process and delivery time. 2 months gone by any no items and no refund. Feel so dumb. Well one more lesson for me to learn from.

oh my god i am so glad i came across this post today!!! last night or this morning, not sure which, my friend that i share a beauty account with on instagram text me and said that these people had commented and emailed us wanting us to be ambassadors and what everyone else is going through. i am so glad that i read all this and we will not be participating in this scam thanks to you guys!!!

i just think its very odd for a company to just randomly talk to people about representing them and all that. and i had never even heard of this company before, neither of us had so it was just very strange

Thanks so much for this. I have just been contacted by someone on instagram saying I should join them. I read the website thought, free necklace, well surely it cant hurt to give it a try. However, I thought I would just google them to see what others were saying. After that I think it´s best I don´t bother going ahead.

I guess this post is popular because they recently contacted me in regards to it and said they’ve been bought about a year ago and they’re a better company and want to send me something free again but I don’t think I can trust them.

OMG thank you so much for having shared this. I’m Brazilian and NORANYC said I could be an Ambassador as long as I bought a pair of sunglasses. I found it VERY weird and then I read your blog… Geez. This is so fucking idiot!

I’m so glad I saw this before I ordered a necklace off them after they asked me to be an ambassador, I’ve been scammed before in something like this so I’m so glad that I checked before I ordered mine. Thank god someone like you made this so other people don’t get scammed

Not to be rude, but I’m shocked that so many people gave them money 😦 Similar instas have been contacting me since I had like 10 followers. Why would my tiny accout be of any use to a company wanting to promote their products? I report every single one of these blatant scammers, but it looks like it doesn’t help much 😦

I think we should start using our Instagram to our advantage to take these “huge” criminals down.
I’m lucky to not have been affected by it, because I am a very enquistive person when it comes to marketing strategies.
The young social network is massive on Instagram. I am taking screenshots of this article and asking my friends and their friends to take a minute to read and share.
Some people are just more easily manipulated than others.

I got a message from them on my Instagram. First I wrote it off as just a scam. Then I checked out their website and was a bit shocked by those prices! On their Instagram seemed to be all happy customers, so I decided to send an e-mail, just in case.

They responded quickly and “personally selected” me as their new Mirina Girl. I carefully read everything in their (pretty long) email to check for any traps.

It all seemed fine and I got to choose one “Famous Necklace” on which I would get 80% discount + a free black choker.

I send them my preference and asked them if there was a time limit in which I should order. They did not respond to that question, I simply got another standard reply with a basic discount code.

When I suddenly saw a necklace on their website that I had seen before on Aliexpress, something began to nag.
I took some of theur pictures and ran it through the Google database. A lót of those necklaces are beeing sold on Aliexpress, Ebay and Amazon for like 8 dollars! So… were these all copies from Mirina…or was Mirina simply buying cheap jewelry from China and selling them as high-end, one-of-a-kind jewelry?

Then I started Googling for the company and if it was a scam and well… here I am 🙂

Hi! Thank you for this post. I was “officially selected” to promote sunglasses for Nora NYC so I decided to do some digging. I have been working with social media and marketing for a living so a lot of things stroke me very strange. Like, if you have your own designs and and busines you want to tell aaaaalll about it, explain things and such and at least put the link to your store so it´s always easy access. All I could find was several accounts on Instagram promoting and looking for new affiliates. Webpage is also sloppy. It´s missing a lot of information, like actual address or name of any person working there. Pictures of the sunglasses were, as it turns out, directly from AliExpress.

Now, I wan to point out to anyone else who comes here:

THE REAL PRODUCT THEY ARE AFTER ARE YOUR PICTURES,

posing happily with the products. These are powerful marketing tool. If you agree for them to use your pictures, you wont get the rights back and your innocent pictures might end up fooling others. Now that you know, don`t do it.
And finally, I´m glad to say that when I was doing my search about this, Google filled automatically word “scam” on my search of Nora NYC, and this blog was on top. Well done. *cheers*

I’m also very happy I looked into it, because it came clear to me, the reason that their website looks so elegant and like exquisite quality is because they have been allowed to steal photos from popular local fashion icons in different countries. Where many are beautiful woman and likely involved in the modelling industry, seeing as they come hand in hand with one another. Some gain a lot respect and money from their Instagram feed.
But these continuous scams should be widely and clearly disrespected. Others have worked hard just for these people to steal their talent and make their money making scheme easier.

I just decided to create a beauty instagram and boom, on my first post I was being offered to become a brand ambassador for them. It wasn’t even a good picture. I got comments from both mirina and the sunglasses company. I found it pretty obvious that it was too good to be true especially on like, my first and third post ever. (Plus I just assume half the users on instagram are bots at this point anyway.)

At any rate I got curious and decided to do a bit of research and found this. Curiosity satisfied! Now I can block them eagerly. ^_^

I wasn’t contacted by them, but I was by one called BohoQueen. Thought it all sounded super cool, was going to purchase a knuckle ring set because it was the cheapest but wasn’t 100% sure what a knuckle ring was so I googled it and immediately found the exact same ring set for like $1.35 or something stupid on eBay. That’s how I discovered this Mirina company, because I decided to google some of their other specific jewelry. The ring set I was gonna get was $34, on the Mirina site it’s $19. I’m glad I looked into it more before spending any money!

Thank you so much for posting this! I just got contacted by beautyloverswanted on instagram. I posted a pic and this is what the comment they left said: “Have you ever wanted to be featured in a magazine? Become a mirina girl and find yourself on our instagram, magazines and more. Just email us or check out our website and click mirina girls”
Have a great day!

Yes. I’ve read a great deal of your story and I find it most intruiging and also very much confincing… to not do a collaboration.
Your products can easily be bought on Amazon, Ebay or Taobao. for /10 less money.
I’ve read unfortunate stories about the girls who did do a collaboration making them pay for shipping costs (!?) (That’s not how a collaboration works).
And not receiving the products or understood that this is a scam.
I hope you find some goodness in your heart to do something honest with the rest of your carreer and not scam teenagers.

I am so grateful for how perfectly you stated that. It honestly ruins me seeing my extremely talented young friends being affected by someone who has put so much effort and time into something so heartless. As if not enough, it makes me feel worse knowing they have been getting away with this for so long! I hope this article somehow makes it’s way through a chain on those strong social platforms like Facebook and Instagram so that more girls can be warned. This is happening all over the world to girls trying to make a living.

Well done for writing this post! I just this hour sent an enquiry off to Mirina to ask about selling their jewellery through my own site but having thought their pieces seemed a bit overpriced I decided to do a bit of research and found this page!
I also found quite a few of their items much cheaper online through.
I’m sure you are saving so many people from losing their hard earned money after reading this so thank you.

Yeh I’ve been contacted by them and already I feel it’s a rip off program. If a company genuinely wants to work with you, they will send their products over for free and not ask you to pay for shipping or give you a discounted price on their items. Pretty much you’re just buying their items at a lower cost and helping them promote for free! I noticed many companies like that out there right now!

Thank you for your honest reviews! I was recently contacted by both Nora Sunglasses Collection and Mirina Girl Feature Brand at the same time via Instagram and was just about to go onto their site to check them out. Thank goodness I chanced upon your site just before I did that.

I am happy that I found your article. I was contacted by both Nora and Mirina 2 days ago. But when I found that I had to pay for the products, it didn’t seem correct because I have previously worked with other good brands and I had products sent for free. Thank you!

So glad I found this post. They contacted me, as well and I was going to move forward with them but have decided not to. I found it a little strange they reached out to me via an auxiliary profile instead of their official one. Thanks for the heads up 🙂

I actually just received an email from them. I remembered the name because I too had that necklace email, but refused. Today’s email was in regards to handbags. “You’ve been selected! Here’s your code to receive 75% off a bag of your choice!” I have NEVER paid to work with a brand. That is 100% backwards. If a brand wants to collaborate, then they set aside a budget for bloggers and influencers.
I found your blog post by googling “Mirina handbag reviews”. There literally isn’t any other press that I could find. I wrote them back, telling them the same thing. They quickly replied with: ‘We think of this as a partnership. And we’d love for you to visit if you’re ever in town. We would invite you to red carpet events and fashion week…’ etc. etc. I can get into events like that on my own. Plus, if I was ever to pay someone for services like that, it would be a manager, not an accessories brand.
Hopefully your post will serve as a warning to bloggers new to the game, and save them money and disappointment!

Thanks for writing this! They recently reached out to me, and I honestly thought they were a legit company until I got their e-mail. It seemed fishy to me so I started doing some digging. Appreciate you!

OMG! Girrrrrllll thank god i saw your post whilst i was googling! I was approached by them on my instagram and i thought it was a bit weird why would an account with over 70k followers want me, a random person with only a lil over a thousand followers to promote their brand. It sounded too good to be true! Ahhhh my conscience were right. I’m not the only one thinking this way. Thank god i didnt send them anything yet!

I myself was contacted by Tiffany whatever to be a marina girl. I spent almost $100 on their website. I got skeptical when I received the necklaces, they looked so cheap I was so disappointed. I even put their website on my IG page for quite a Time but then I removed it, it was free advertisement for them, I am not surprised that it is a scam. they got me once they won’t this time.

I also completely agree on this and I am so glad other ladies are experiencing the same thing!
Would love for this to become more noticed under my friends as they are easily manipulated through social media. Especially if you are involved in the fashion scene and is know to be trusted to always advertise and promote quality through a wonderful and vastly growing social media platform. A platform that many social media entrepreneurs use now to support their career success, especially young and upcoming fashion designers.

I just read your article, and it’s sad that they are still scamming people. They reached out to me today under a different name Chic Wish List bit are still affiliates with Mirina Collections. Something was scetchy because 20 mins later I received another email from Hot Miami Shades which is affiliated with Chic Wishlist aboitvtue same opportunity.

I refuse to spend money on anything, so I decided to do some research and came across your article. So happy I didn’t pay for anything.

I got scammed but a little different. See I didn’t like any of their jewellery, it looked tacky on the website anyway so when they said for me to choose my free necklace I said I didn’t like any of the necklaces but would prefer to exchange that offering for one of their clothing items (that’s what lured me in!) the blazers and dresses. So they said I can just use my 75% discount and purchase as much as I like.
So I went ahead and started adding all these items to cart.
So fortunately I didn’t have any delay with shipping, it reached me in a few days, the only issue is that when I tried the 2 items on they were made like size 0, XXS when they were medium sizes on the tag and I’m a size S-M so I can’t actually fit into them whatsoever to promote them as they are way too small on me. I reached out to them and asked if I could exchange for large sizes and I haven’t heard back. I then checked their websites returns/exchange policy and there is no exchanges or refunds…!!!? Then I started to feel scammed about the whole experience and the other issue- I haven’t received the other 2 items I paid for. A bag and a t-shirt.
So I’ve also asked about those items and haven’t heard from them.
They make you feel like you’re getting a massive discount (75% off) for being an ambassador but really you’re just getting ripped off coz the pieces aren’t worth the original prices to start with.
I must say the dress and the blazer I received are such gorgeous pieces but a real shame that their sizing is so misleading. I feel like I need XL in the items to fit, what’s up with that?!!
I paid around $270USD which is like over $350 AUD so not happy.

Small companies like these are always lurking on my ig. But I never engage with them until doing research because if I never heard of the brand or bought from it before I don’t trust it already. So usually once I see the name I always google it to look at business reviews, articles or if it’s legit. So I appreciate you for making this article. Sorry that you were apart of it.